spellers diary and anonymuncule and nidifugous and nidicolous and anthropophagous

Beginning today, and continuing for the next two months, I hope, I will post daily columns as I prepare for the National Senior Spelling Bee on June 18, 2005 in Cheyenne, WY. Last year I placed second in the Bee, losing out to Dr. Jeff Kirsch, a whiz of a speller from Madison, Wisconsin. This year the competition will be at least as formidable. The winner of the 2005 Oregon Bee, where I miserably bombed, was Mr. David Riddle, from CA, who breezed through the words like a catamaran through a New England lake. I decided that the only way not to embarrass myself will be to try to work through the dictionary at about 26 pages a day until the competition. But the first thing I need to do is to establish a method; then I have to be aware of the pitfalls; finally, I have to discover joy (or at least non-boredom) in the task. This is my "first day" at it.

Method

So I am staring at the 1459-page Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) which will be used in the competiton. If foreign words, biographical and geographical entries are included, the dictionary becomes much longer, but we only focus on the 1459 pages. Then, within those pages are many word that can be spelled in two or more ways. For example, on p. 4 is the word "absinthe," defined as "wormwood," but it is also spelled "absinth." Actually, if you really study words closely, using the OED and the examples there given, you find that many words can be spelled in more than two ways, and that often the preferred spelling in the OED is NOT the same as the preferred spelling in the 11th Collegiate edition (such as "anthelmintic"-our dictionary or "anthelminthic"--OED). Dr. Kirsch told me that when this is the case, the words won't be used. Then, there are tons of very technical scientific terms, such as "acetaldehyde," which Jeff assured me wouldn't be in the competition because the judges would have difficulty using them in a sentence.

So, how do I proceed? Here is the tentative method I am using. Each day I will do two "sessions" of 13 pages each, writing down the words that either I don't know or I can see might cause me trouble or are words that are seemingly good and sturdy words that have a good chance of being on the test. That is, I imagine which words I might use if I were drawing up the test, and then I include them also. So far I am just beginning with 10 page segments, and I normally have about 25-35 words which I include on my list. I also put a brief definition next to the term that in certain cases will help to remove confusion. For example, the words aphaeresis and apheresis, which are two different words according to the 11th ed., are just alternative spellings of the same word for other dictionaries. An additional example of this is anthropophagous and anthropophagus, which the 11th edition differentiates but other dictionaries do not.

In any case, this is what I have started to do. I have made lists through the first 70 pages, and I also did pages 300-346 on the night of April 9 in an exhausting marathon session after I was so disgusted with myself for doing poorly in the Oregon competition earlier that day. Then, after making the lists for the day, I review them twice or three times during the course of my activities. I also plan to get my son in on the act; he said he would help, but I don't plan to exploit him for a few more weeks.

A Distraction

But I already know that I will be distracted from my task. Let me tell you how the distraction will happen and is already occurring. As I do the words from the 11th edition, I want to "peek" at the OED, the Century Dictionary or a standard unabridged (I use Webster's 3rd International). When I do that, I become enamored of words that probably are not in the 11th edition or are words that are fairly easy to spell but I simply want to explore in more detail. For example, when I was doing my "an's" a few days ago, I ran into the word anonymuncule, which is not in the competition dictionary but is too good a word to lose. It means a 'petty anonymous writer,' and I laughed out loud at thinking about it. It combines the words "anonymous" and "homunculus" (little man); I can just imagine all these wannabe writers who are consigned to oblivion because they were not able to find their "niche" for their words. Or, when I was doing some examples from pages 490-515, to "warm myself up" for the larger task, I ran into frenum, not a particularly difficult word to spell, but with a fascinating story behind it. A "frenum" is a band of tissue which connects organs to each other in the human body. The more usual example of it is the band of connective tissue between the tongue and the floor of the mouth.

Fine, I know an example of frenum. But then I dig deeper and find that it can also refer to the band of skin between the testicles and the shaft of the penis, and that many tattoo artists offer frenum-piercing services. Then, I find myself lost on the internet learning about how tattoo artists do their work and all the body parts they can pierce. I learn also the various names they give to their techniques, and then I find myself memorizing their techniques rather than difficult words. Thus, I stray and have to discipline myself to return to the dictionary.

Or, to give another example, I ran across the word altricial, a word that I didn't know but I am sure I would have had no trouble spelling. It is a characteristic of the young of a species which cannot live without parental care for an extended time. Then I learned that the opposite was precocial, which kind of made sense, but then I also learned that there were synonyms for each. Something that is altricial is also nidicolous. The Latin word "nidi" is "nest," and "colous" is the word for "dwelling," so a nidicolous species hangs around the nest for a while. Kids must fit that definition, don't you think? But, then there is a nidifugous species that can't wait to "flee" the nest. I found myself wanting to do word studies on each of these words, finding examples of each, but then I realized that I was falling behind so severely in my endeavors that I would never get out of the "a's" if I continued to "let myself go."

This created and creates a real conundrum for me, since I am utterly committed to learning new words and following the inclination of my heart. When I am "enjoying" myself I become incredibly productive; however, when I feel I am just following the rote program of someone else, I tend to rebel and become less efficient. So, more than the germ of a problem here. I have thought that maybe allowing myself to write 2 pages a day on words--one on the Spelling Bee words and one on words of my choice, would solve the problem, but I don't know if it will. Time will tell.

Conclusion

So, I plan to go through about 10-26 pages a day in each of my diary "entries." I think I will list some of the words that are giving me trouble. But I want to be free also to let you know what I am thinking as I learn these words. Such fun simply has to be shared.

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